


Just like old times

by servantofclio



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-01
Updated: 2018-01-01
Packaged: 2019-02-26 10:15:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13233588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/servantofclio/pseuds/servantofclio





	Just like old times

Maybe it’s the painkillers Chakwas prescribed him, maybe it’s the fact that he still can’t hear quite right on the right side of his head, maybe it’s how this ship is familiar and unfamiliar all at once, sleek and white and clean after Omega’s perpetual grunge and odor. Whatever it is, Garrus spends the first few days after Chakwas released him from the medbay feeling weirdly disconnected. It’s like he drifts in and out of the moment, one second here, the next lost in memories of Omega, the one after that, on another version of the Normandy entirely.

Like now, for example, when he walks into the galley late in the ship’s evening, and finds Joker propped up against a counter, drinking coffee.

The light’s too bright, but except for that, Garrus could be on the old Normandy: that cramped space with its shitty replicator and coffee machine, Joker and Kaidan standing around giving each other crap, like old friends, Tali throwing in puzzled questions about human customs.

He blinks, and he’s in this larger, brighter space again, and Joker’s wearing white and black instead of blue.

“Hey, Garrus,’ he says.

“Hey,” Garrus replies.

“How’s the face?”

It throbs, the sharp ache of it buried under layers of painkillers. “It’s fine. How are the legs?”

Joker snorts. “Better than ever.”

“Good.”

The conversation stalls there. Garrus shifts from foot to foot, restless. He’s not dumb; he knows what it means when humans roll their eyes when they think you’re not looking. Joker was a crewmate, nothing more, but here they both are.

“So, Omega,” Joker says after another swallow of coffee. “Funny finding you all the way out here.”

“Uh, yeah. Things got… a little strange after Shepard…” He trails off. He hadn’t been able to explain it to Shepard, that cocktail of anger, grief, and frustration that had choked him until the day he’d thrown his resignation on Pallin’s desk.

“No shit, dude, you don’t have to tell me. Look where I ended up.”

Garrus looks at Joker in white and black, and gets it. They’ve both come a long way from where they used to be. “Well,” he says, for lack of anything better to say. “Here we are now.”

Joker chuckles. “Yeah. Here we are. Just like old times, right?”

Garrus eases, a little, tension he didn’t even know was there. “Just like.”


End file.
